


The Price of Greatness

by SemperIntrepida



Series: Elegiad [2]
Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Playthrough, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, a slight divergence from canon but we'll get to the same place in the end, sex without feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-04
Updated: 2019-11-04
Packaged: 2021-01-23 01:01:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21311527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SemperIntrepida/pseuds/SemperIntrepida
Summary: In which Kassandra encounters a woman in a cage in the Halls of Odysseus, and discovers that cages can take many forms.
Series: Elegiad [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1531004
Comments: 12
Kudos: 42





	The Price of Greatness

**Author's Note:**

> This one-shot is part of a linked series of stories, and while you don't have to read them all, they do combine into a unified narrative.

There was a woman locked in a cage within the ruins of the Halls of Odysseus, a curious sight in the place where clever Penelope once defended her hearth and her virtue from a mob of unwanted suitors, a place that now echoed with the footsteps of thieves and snarling dogs as they patrolled its crumbling remains. Kassandra surveyed the ruins from the highest of the surviving walls, the thieves reduced to figures in miniature far below. The sun had just begun to rise, casting slanted shadows that made the figures disappear and reappear, like a trick of the gods, or an attempt by spirits to impede her search for the treasure she was there for.

The cage sat in the furthest corner of the ruins away from her current perch. In between, the place was crawling with thieves; twelve at least, maybe fifteen. And somewhere down below, also, was the reason she was here: the Shroud of Penelope, stolen from a rich man who could pay well to get it back.

Kassandra swung herself over the edge of the wall and began climbing back down the darkened cornice she’d come up on, digging her fingers into decaying mortar between stone blocks. She lowered herself down slowly, careful not to dislodge any pebbles or set her swordbelt clanking. There were too many thieves here to be careless.

She descended far enough to bring a group of them within earshot, their conversation barely audible above the morning songs of birds and the buzzing of insects awakening from cold slumber by the warming rays of Helios’s crown.

“What will we do with the woman?” one of the voices asked.

“Ransom her.” This voice was deeper, with the harsh edge of someone who was used to his orders being followed. The leader of this group, then. “She comes from money. Find out where to send the demand.”

A third voice said something then, but Kassandra couldn’t make out the words.

“Fine.” The leader’s voice again. “Have your fun but leave her face pretty.”

Kassandra wasn’t about to sit idly by and watch that happen, and if this mystery woman was as rich as the bandits thought, maybe Kassandra would end up with a little extra coin as a reward along with the favor of the gods. Her pulse sped up and she resumed her descent down the wall until her sandals reached the dirt. She crouched and flexed the tension out of her hands and fingers as she peered around the corner and scouted her chosen path to the cage on the other side.

She would have preferred to wait until nightfall to infiltrate the ruins and steal back the Shroud, but the leader’s directive required an immediate change of plans. She’d start by taking a path around the base of the palace’s outer wall, using the plentiful foliage nearby for cover. The birds were wide awake now, along with other forest creatures, and their songs and cries seemed to lament the palace’s lost splendor.

As she crept closer to the cage, she caught glimpses of two men on a parallel course to her own. She picked up her pace to match, until she was close enough to see the cage and its captive clearly. She ducked behind a section of wall barely large enough to hide her, and waited.

The woman in the cage stood up as the men approached. She was slim and dark haired, and one of the men must have said something to her that Kassandra couldn’t hear, because she suddenly slammed her hands against the bars and shouted, “Fucking _make me_.”

She was brave, at least. The men began to laugh, and that was Kassandra’s cue to start moving. She came up behind them, tapped one on the shoulder, and punched him square in the nose as he turned. The other got a knee straight to the gut and a double-fisted blow to the back of his head. Both men out cold, before they’d even had a chance to shout a warning.

Kassandra reached down and snagged a rusty key that hung from one man’s waistbelt, using it to unlock the padlock on the cage. The woman stared at her as the cage door swung open. “Let’s get out of here,” Kassandra said. “Can you fight?”

Her question seemed to shake the surprise out of the woman. “I’d be happy to,” she said. She moved gracefully, more like a priestess than a fighter. What could she be doing all the way out here?

Kassandra reached down and slid her arms under the armpits of one of the unconscious thieves. “Grab that one,” she said, nodding over to the smaller man.

They dragged the limp bodies into some nearby bushes, out of sight, though of course all bets were off the moment someone noticed the cage was no longer occupied. Until then, they had a few moments to size each other up, and get answers to the question that hung over them both: _Who are you?_

The woman’s name was Odessa. A descendent of Odysseus himself, she claimed, though all that did was make Kassandra roll her eyes internally. And the thieves were right: Odessa _did_ come from money. Kassandra could see it in the way she carried herself, the expectation behind the things she said – that the world would somehow conspire to give her everything she wanted. How lucky for her that Kassandra had arrived to rescue her and clear the area of danger so she could explore the palace.

How lucky for Kassandra that Odessa had the means to pay for it. “Looks like we both need something out of these ruins,” she said. “We could work together.”

“Those bastards took my gear and left it around the corner over there. I could help you fight if I had it.”

The thieves seemed to prefer patrolling the central parts of the ruins, so Kassandra retrieved Odessa’s bow and quiver easily enough. The bow was well made, with tidy silver fittings and a nicely worked leather grip – and judging by its wear, it had also seen a surprising amount of use. She’d guess target practice more than actual battle, but one could never tell.

Odessa slung the bow and quiver over her shoulder. “Now what do you want me to do?”

“Aim for archers and dogs. And try not to shoot me.”

That angered her. “Do you take me for a fool?”

“I just took you from a cage. Curious how you ended up in it.”

Odessa nodded in concession. “You’re right, I was careless. I won’t make that mistake again.”

“Good,” Kassandra said. “Let’s hope your aim is as true as your namesake’s.” She reached down and sketched a rough outline of the ruins in the dust. “Now here’s where I’m going to go.”

As she drew out her plan, a rustle within the branches next to them signaled that one of the thieves had returned from Hypnos’s realm too early. She clouted him behind his ear and sent him back to dreamland.

“They’ll both wake up eventually,” she said, “so we’ll need to move quickly.”

Odessa frowned. “You could just kill them.” Apparently she thought life was cheap, or perhaps she’d never done it herself and just assumed it was easy, that there weren’t costs to bear later on, in the quiet times of night that invited visits from the spirits of the conscience.

Kassandra gave her a long look. “Have you ever killed someone?”

“No.”

“I’m not getting paid enough to kill every thief in this ruin. But with some luck, we won’t have to.”

They began by climbing the remnants of a nearby building. Once they reached the roof, Kassandra took the lead, sneaking up behind an archer daydreaming at his post and stealing his breath from him with a squeeze of her bracered forearm. She motioned for Odessa to move to a shadowed corner near the archer’s previous post. From this vantage, she’d be able to cover almost the entire ruin with bowshot.

“If someone raises an alarm, start shooting,” Kassandra whispered, and Odessa readied her bow.

Kassandra climbed back the way they came, dropping to the ground and silently moving from dark corner to corner until she came upon two thieves betting on a game of knucklebones played in the dirt. A thrown pebble distracted them both long enough for her to draw in close and throw quick elbow strikes – one, two – leaving two senseless bodies behind.

A moving shadow sped across the ruins before her, its blade-like shape coming from the pair of wings she knew was circling high overhead. _Not yet, Ikaros,_ she thought. _Not just yet._

She worked her way along the walls, back towards the thief she suspected was the leader. He was alone, standing with his back to her as he rummaged through clay pots that probably held wine. Her hand slipped back for her broken spear, and then she took one step, two steps, three, and slammed the blade up through his spine, the point of the spear ending up somewhere deep in his chest. He died with a soggy gurgle as his body slumped to the ground.

The sudden scent of hot metal sent a familiar pleasure surging through her, enveloping her in its warmth. She pulled her spear from the man’s back and flipped his body over. When she lifted the edge of his chestplate, she saw the unmistakeable flash of Tyrian purple tucked inside the front of his waistbelt. She carefully pulled out the length of fabric. It wouldn’t do to sully the Shroud of Penelope with a dead thief’s blood.

She looked around quickly. There, on a shelf of supplies against the wall, was a row of amphorae that would make a fine hiding place for her prize. She placed the Shroud in a darkened hollow behind them, and it was a good thing she had, for at that moment a dog wandered around the corner and spotted her. It began to bark furiously and launched itself upon her, all claws and flashing teeth, and she extended her forearm just in time for slavering jaws to clamp hard around her bracer instead of her hand.

The attack dog’s claws scratched at her armor as she held her arm away from her body. She gutted the beast with a flick of the spear, then jammed the spear’s broken handle into the dog’s mouth to pry apart the jaws locked around her arm. She’d have one Hades of a bruise there later.

There was shouting now, all across the ruins. She hoped Odessa was doing her part. How many thieves were left? Eight? Nine?

She ran towards the nearest wall, using her momentum to propel herself up to the second floor, or what was left of it, anyway, the wooden planks left broken and splintered as the building collapsed upon itself. A quick look around the ruins showed a handful of thieves headed for Odessa, and another handful headed for her.

She watched them approach through a broken gap in the wall, noting their weapons and armor. Heavily armed to a man. Taking them on all at once would be foolhardy.

As she focused her attention on the man at the very back of the group, a peculiar feeling sparked into her right hand from where it grasped the handle of her spear, and then the feeling raced up her arm and neck, a spark of energy and… _movement?_ – and then she was launching herself off the building, an impossible leap that ended with her spear impaling itself in the man’s throat, followed by another impossibly fast pivot and her spear gutting another, and by the time she rolled to her feet, two thieves were dead and the advantage was all hers.

Angry streaks of red blurred the edges of her vision as she drew her sword and entered the fray. The warmth that had enveloped her earlier had only grown; it seemed to elevate her senses and insulate her from any doubts, and then the thieves began to move in ways that were utterly predictable. Turn _this_ thief’s knife aside with the spear and block _that_ thief’s sword with her own. Pivot and crouch. Thrust the spear up through this one’s jaw and into his skull. Plant her sword in the belly of another. Flip the spear in her fingers and swing back around to sink its blade deep into the neck of the last. Feel the pleasure, sultry and luxuriant, as it sang to her _more, more, more_…

Ikaros’s warning cry snapped her attention back to the corner of the ruins where she’d left Odessa. She broke into a full run, passed one thief who was trying to crawl away with an arrow embedded in his thigh and another one face down in the dust with an arrow in his back. She saw one climbing up the building and leapt up after him, and once he was within reach she pulled him down off the wall and onto the broken stones below. Then she was reaching, grasping, long muscles of thigh propelling her up and onto the roof, where she saw Odessa backed into a corner, bow drawn, facing off with a pair of thieves.

A failed rescue paid no drachmae. Kassandra launched herself at the nearest man, leaving the spear lodged in his back as Odessa fired an arrow into the neck of the other. The arrow’s impact brought him to a halt, his eyes wide as his fingers reached for the bundle of feathers jutting out from his throat, just before his body went rigid and he toppled sideways off the roof.

Then there was silence, even among the birds and forest creatures, who knew to stay quiet in dangerous times.

Kassandra approached Odessa slowly, holding her empty hands out to her sides and trying not to startle the other woman. Then Odessa turned and looked at her, and Kassandra saw her go pale under her tanned skin.

Kassandra looked down at herself and found that she was covered in blood. The sight made the feeling of pleasure that clung to her – the blood craving, or whatever it was – evaporate away like smoke from a burnt offering. To what god it would be delivered to, she could not say. She swallowed down a wave of bile and gestured humorlessly across the ruins. “This is not the first time great Odysseus’s palace has witnessed a bloodbath.”

Odessa reached out and placed two fingers on Kassandra’s cheek. “Your eyes… So dark,” she said, and when she pulled her hand back, Kassandra saw that her fingertips were smeared with blood. “I looked in them and for a moment I saw Hades himself.”

“This is what killing looks like.”

Long ago, Kassandra had been forced to come to terms with the things she did to survive, but now, remembering warmth and power, she wondered if she’d crossed the line between survival and enjoyment.

Society understood killing for survival. It even condoned killing for profit, or for greatness. But killing for pleasure? What would that make her?

They stood there for a long time, saying nothing, until Kassandra could no longer stand the sticky feeling of blood clotting on her skin. She turned away wordlessly and began walking to the edge of the roof.

Odessa’s voice stopped her. “Kassandra. Meet me down in the cove. I’ll have your payment for you there.”

Kassandra turned back just enough for Odessa to see her nod, and then she was gone, searching for flowing water and a way to distract herself from questions she wasn’t ready to answer.

.oOo.

The sun was high overhead by the time Kassandra arrived at the cove. Her armor was still damp and her hair had finally dried enough for her to plait it back into her customary braid. There’d also been the matter of the Shroud, which required taking a detour back through the ruins to retrieve it from its hiding place. She felt it now, silky against her skin from where she’d tucked it inside her chiton.

She found Odessa sitting on a driftwood log, staring out over the water at the boats coming in and out of Sami. She seemed so small and out of place. Odessa stood at the sound of Kassandra’s footsteps and turned to her.

“I killed men back there,” she said. Her voice was flat, emotionless.

Kassandra thought of the thief that Odessa had shot through the throat, and how his fingers reached for feathers before he failed to fly on his own. “It’s likely, yes.”

“I don’t feel any different. At least, I don’t think I do.”

“Not everyone reacts the same way.”

Odessa paused, then said, “You know, I came here looking for a way to understand my namesake.”

“Did you find what you were looking for?”

“Not at all.” Odessa shook her head. “But I did learn that there’s a price I might have to pay for greatness, if I still want it at all.”

“And do you?”

Odessa turned her gaze back to the water. The moment lengthened, and the boats of Sami continued to glide across the waves. Eventually, she said, “There’s so much I desire. To be as great as Odysseus, where would I even begin?”

“If you want Odysseus’s greatness, you have to do it your own way. He was famous because of his cunning. What have you done?”

Odessa’s eyes flashed. “I traveled all the way here!” She was beautiful in a way, all privilege and indignation.

“To see the ruins of Odysseus’s life,” Kassandra pointed out. “Not live your own.”

“Is every misthios so generous with advice?”

Something stirred within Kassandra, a longing for distraction, for something that could wipe away the residue of dark pleasure that still clung to her from this morning. “Maybe this misthios finds her generosity inspired by beauty.”

Color rose in Odessa’s cheeks. “So you’re planning to visit Aphrodite’s Temple in Kythera someday.”

“I was thinking of visiting her temple on this island… right now.”

That made Odessa laugh. “You _are_ forward, aren’t you?” She looked Kassandra up and down, as if making up her mind. “I suppose I could take time from my quest to thank you properly. But not on this beach. All this sand…”

“I’m sure you have a bed somewhere we can use.”

That made Odessa’s lips curve into a smirk, and Kassandra leaned forward and kissed her, while putting an arm around her waist and pulling her in close. She felt tiny in Kassandra’s arms, and it took no effort at all to lift her up from the sand. She wrapped her legs around Kassandra’s waist and pointed the way to a hidden campsite in between kisses of growing intensity.

By the time Kassandra set her down gently on the bedroll, Odessa was almost frantic, fluttering like a caged bird as Kassandra stripped her of her dress and discovered that there was a downside to wearing a nice set of armor – taking it all off when in a hurry. Kassandra held Odessa down with one hand on her belly while using her other to cast off pieces of armor to and fro, until they were finally skin-to-skin, Odessa’s hot breath against her throat and sweat under her palms.

Kassandra traced Odessa’s outlines with her hands: the curve of hip, the slope of belly. She trailed kisses down Odessa’s throat. She took her time, ignoring the huffing breaths that Odessa was making with increased frequency, and letting her own desire build and build. It had been too long since she’d taken someone to bed, felt the power of making another person need in their deepest, most hidden places. She smiled and dipped kisses between Odessa’s breasts, kisses that said _I know you want this, show me how much_.

“Gods… please.”

“There’s only one god in this temple,” Kassandra said before sucking a nipple between her lips and lavishing it with her tongue. Then she nipped it gently with her teeth. “…but she says you’ll just have to wait.” Odessa cried out softly and thrust her hips forward in supplication. Oh yes, Kassandra had almost forgotten how much fun this could be.

Kassandra slid a hand down Odessa’s hip — such fragility in those bones underneath — and then between her legs, stroking the fine skin softly, languidly, as if time no longer meant anything at all.

Kisses. Soft skin of breast and thigh. Odessa’s stomach muscles straining as she thrust herself against Kassandra, wings beating against the cage, and Kassandra wanted, _needed_, to be inside her, and then she was: thrusting, searching for the lock that secured Odessa’s need. It shattered as her fingers reached someplace far within, and then Odessa was free and soaring, her cry triumphant as she flew on unseen currents, far away from a world of blood and thieves.

Kassandra closed her eyes and enjoyed feeling Odessa’s pleasure ripple through her fingers. She enjoyed knowing that she was its source, and it pushed away her lingering darkness and replaced one sort of craving for another. She wanted to see Odessa’s back arch in ecstasy a second time, wanted to hear her cry out again as she came, and so Kassandra withdrew her fingers and started over, until she got exactly what she wanted.

Much later, they sat side by side on the blankets, enjoying cups of wine and the dance of clouds at sunset, when Odessa leaned in close for another kiss and said, “More. Now.”

Kassandra was more than happy to oblige.

.oOo.

She awoke the moment Odessa began to stir, but kept her eyes closed and her breathing deep and even as Odessa slipped away from her grasp and quietly crept around the campsite, gathering her belongings into a bag. There wasn’t much, and it only took a few moments before Odessa went still again. Kassandra risked a peek from between her lashes. Odessa was a silhouette against the water, unmoving, lost in thought. Kassandra wondered what she’d do next. Would she turn and say something? Or would she leave and say nothing at all.

Kassandra felt herself being watched, and after several moments Odessa sighed and set something down in the dirt beside the cold ashes of the campfire. Then she was gone, headed toward the boats moored in the cove down below, headed to Sami. By the time Helios blazed high overhead, she’d be on a ship sailing east, heading home, wherever that was.

Kassandra lay there for a long time, the pleasure she’d felt while making love to Odessa still wrapped around her muscles. It _had_ been too long since she’d done this. Maybe that’s why she’d started to feel so strangely during battles. Let a field lay fallow for long enough and weeds would eventually move in. Maybe a body denied pleasure in one way would seek it from another.

Kephallonia was a place of small dreams, and its people had become too familiar. She was tired of doing the same jobs over and over. She was tired of waiting for increasingly rare visits from attractive strangers she could flirt with. She understood, then, what could drive someone to search for something more, something greater.

Perhaps Kephallonia had become her cage.

She reached over and plucked the pouch Odessa had left behind out of the dirt. It was heavy with drachmae. Just a business transaction.

She would leave Kephallonia soon, she decided. She thought of Penelope’s Shroud and the man who had hired her to retrieve it. Elpenor. He’d be her ticket out. She’d make sure of that.

But for now, she’d lay right here, feeling the blanket beside her grow cold as she waited for the sun to rise, thinking of pleasures light and dark, and what greatness actually meant.

**Author's Note:**

> To mad-cow-mama at tumblr dot com, for always remembering.


End file.
